Joseph hacking riley and edmund o connor



(Nu Model.)

- 7 J. H. RILEY & E. OGONNOR.

OLOTH FOLDING MACHINE.

No. 587,017. Patented July 27, 1897.

THE urmms PETERS co PNOTO-LITNO.. WASHINGTON, n. c.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOSEPH HACKING RILEY AND EDMUND OOONNOR, or BURY, ENGLAND.

*CLIOTH-FOLDING MACHINE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 587,017, dated July 27, 1897.

Application filed December 30, 1895. Serial No. 573,737. (No model.) Patented in Germany December 27, 1893, No. 80,432; in France December 28, 1893, No. 235,131, and in England April 11, 1894, No. 7,187.

, T aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, JOSEPH HACKING RI- LEY and EDMUND OOONNOR, citizens of the United'Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, residing at Bury, in the county of Lancaster, England, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Oloth-Folding Machines, (patented in Great Britain, No. 7,187, dated April 11, 1894,; in France, No. 235,131, dated December 28-, 1893, and in Germany, No.- 80,432, dated December 27, 1893,) of which the following is aspecification.

Hitherto when textile piece goods have had to be pressed by hydraulic pressure in the finishing processes they have prior to this treatment been folded by hand or by suitable apparatus, and the papers which have to be employed between the folds have generally been inserted by hand by the pressman.

The object of our invention is to avoid the delay inseparable from the use of hand labor in papering and to improve the mechanism for performing this work, so as to enable the operation to be conducted at a less cost.

According to our invention, as each fold of the cloth is made we cause to be automatically inserted therein a layer of paper by means of suitably-constructed apparatus.

This inventionrelates to that type of machines Which are provided with rising and falling tables for carrying the paper and the folded cloth. Y

The accompanying drawings, which are hereinafter referred to, illustrate an apparatus constructed for thepurposes of our invention.

In each of the figures similar letters of reference are employed to denote similar parts.

Figure 1 is a longitudinal vertical section of the upper central part of a machine furnished with our feeding device. Fig; 2 is a partial plan of Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is a cross-section along the line a: 00, Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is a detail showing how the fingers b may be vertically adjusted.

In order to facilitate the insertion of the buckled or distorted papers, we erect on the reciprocating bar R of the apparatus (see Figs. 1 and 2) a bracket or support 1*, in which is fnlcrumed the counterweighted lever r and the arm T,which carries the foot 75 The arm T may also carry the adjustable weight a and is connected by a cord or chain to the forward end of the lever r Behind the counterweighted lever there is a fixed incline path U, ending in a horizontal path at the top, along which the counterweighted end of the lever may travel. This motion of the end of the lever r along the path can be facilitated by the roller a, mounted in the end of the lever, and the roller itself may be the counterweight. In front of the reciprocating bar B there are pivoted the brackets b,each of which.

carries a dependent finger h, which may be vertically adjustable and of which there may be six, more or less.

When the reciprocating bar is at the back end of its stroke, as represented by the dotted lines to the left of Fig. 1, ready to commence the insertion of another paper, the fingers I),

p the bar R the foot t is in contact with the topmostpaper and alone pushes it forward. As soon as the reciprocating bar has traveled far enough to carry the fingers b beyond the plate 19 the fingers-drop behind the back edge of the top paper, which has hitherto been advanced by the foot 7. alone and push it during the remainder of the stroke. In the meanwhile the roller a at the end of the lever T has come upon the inclined path U, down which it continues to travel, therebylifting the forward end of the lever, which by means of the chain or cord also lifts the arm T, thus bringing the foot out of contact with the top paper, as shown by the full lines in Fig. 1.

By lifting the fingers Z) at the back end of the stroke and delaying their being lowered until after the commencement of the forward stroke they are prevented from coming behind more than the top sheet, since they fall upon the surface of the second sheet from the top immediately behind the edge of the top sheet, which has been advanced by the foot 15 It is desirable to so construct the arm T and foot t that the latter comes into contact with the top sheet of paper at some distance from the edge, as here the papers are more level and lie more compactly together.

To insure the desired overlapping of the edges of alternate papers and the close folding of the cloth around the paper edges, for the purpose of avoiding the production of cross-stripes in the pressed fabric, we construct the space between the division-plates YYin which the fabric is folded of a greater width than that of the papers. This arrangement is shown in Fig. 1, the thickness of the folds being exaggerated to show it more clearly. The papers are inserted just far enough to cause their following edges to fall into the folding-space. Consequently the leading edge of a sheet inserted from the right does not come up to the following edge of one inserted from the left and the edges overlap. lly thus overlapping the crease at each fold is well covered by the protruding edges of the sheets of paper in the upper and lower folds.

The swinging folding-blades It and u." are arranged so that their holding edges are at.- a little distance away from the division-plates and about perpendicularly above the leading edges of the papers inserted from the opposite side, as shown by Figs. 1 and 2. To these blades there may be attached a downward projection ,2, which when the blade is holding the fold last made just comes into contact with the edges of the inserted papers. There being four of these projections,they secure that the papers are inserted with all their edges parallel.

Having now described and ascertained the nature of our invention, we declare that what we claim is 1. In apparatus of the type set forth for inserting papers into the folds of textile fabrics the combination of a horizontally-reciprocating and vertically-oscillating foot for starting the paper and horizontally-reciproeating fingers for pushing it the remainder of the stroke and means for operating said parts.

2. In apparatus of the type set forth for inserting papers into the folds of textile fabrics, a device for inserting the papers consisting of the lever 1' the arm T and foot t means for connecting the arm and the lever, fingers b, the inclined path U and means for imparting motion to said parts constructed, arranged and operating substantially as and for the purpose hereinhet'ore described.

In testimony that we claim the foregoing as our invention we have signed our names, in presence of two witnesses, this th day of September, 1895.

JOSEPH IIAGKING RILEY. EDMUND OCONNOR. Witnesses:

GEO. IIEYS, ARTHUR BAKER. 

